Confessions
by anonymous moose
Summary: Shepard is the man he is not because he has no weaknesses, but because he keeps them buried. Tali doesn't, and she is all the braver for it. Shepard/Tali.


She had her back to him when he entered the room. Absorbed in her work, as usual, pouring over some part of the ship that wasn't running as efficiently as it could be. Which was every part, to a quarian.

He decided to allow himself a petty amusement, and try something he'd been learning from Thane. He crept up behind her slowly. Carefully. Let his body relax into his steps. The antithesis of what he'd been taught, but Krios was far better than his instructors had ever been. When he was inches behind her, he straightened and linked his hands behind his back.

"Boo."

Tali jumped, two-toed feet almost leaving the ground, and spun.

"Shepard," she said breathlessly. "_Keelah_, you scared me."

"That was the idea," he deadpanned, stepping around to her side and eyeing her console.

"That's not like you."

She was fussing with the shields. Polarities and facing arcs covered the terminal's screens. "What, being cruel?"

"Being quiet." She crossed her arms. "You tend to make an entrance."

According to the readouts, the shields were a full ten point five percent stronger than they'd been yesterday. He grinned tightly. "And why do you think that is?"

She was silent for a moment. He saw her shift her weight out of the corner of his eye.

"So when you don't make an entrance, no one notices."

He looked up, hoping the surprise he felt wasn't showing on his face.

"Exactly."

Shepard had always known Tali was smart. Book-smart, maybe, but smart. She had handled herself well against Fist's men when he'd first run into her, but he'd unfairly put it down to luck. He didn't see a confident, resourceful woman then. He'd seen a young girl who didn't know what she was getting herself into. He'd needed her information, and a talented engineer aboard his ship, but taking her into a firefight was out of the question.

Never mind that he had been seventeen when he'd joined the Alliance military. Never mind that she was five years older than that when they'd met, and been on pilgrimage for four of them. Never mind that she reminded him of one of the colonists' daughters, cut down by one of the slavers as he hid in the trees.

No, she simply could not handle ground combat and that was all there was to it.

It wasn't until he'd finally relented to her constant demands and took her on a routine survey mission that went completely pear-shaped that he'd realized what a fool he'd been. She had been on her own for years by then, and before that had grown up among a nomadic, disenfranchised people whose survival depended on every citizen doing their part. She may not have fully known what she was capable of, but she knew that all she needed was the opportunity, and she could amaze both him and herself.

He'd taken her groundside far more often after that.

"Uh." She fidgeted a little, tapping her fingers against her arm. "So... what can I do for you?"

Shepard pulled his thoughts back to the present.

"It's past shift change."

"Is it that late already?" She said, perfectly innocent. "I hadn't noticed."

His eyes hardened. "Don't."

Her iridescent eyes blinked behind her mask.

"You're pushing yourself too hard," he continued. "I need everyone on this ship at their best. That includes you."

"And the ship?" She asked. "What if we run into the Collectors again? If the shields aren't strong enough-"

"The shields can wait." Shepard's voice rose slightly. He wasn't really angry. More surprised that she was arguing with him. "They'll be here in the morning."

"You don't know that," she muttered darkly, looking down at his chest at the spot where he'd torn the Cerberus emblem off his uniform his first day aboardship.

Before he could say anything in response to that, she sighed angrily and raised a hand to her helmet.

"Sorry. Got sloppy during some suit repair earlier. Been fighting a fever and a headache all day."

Concern overrode duty for only a moment. "You alright?"

She gestured dismissively and let her hand fall back to her side. "It's nothing serious. But I'd only just started to make progress on the shields when you came in."

Part of him - a big part - wanted to just send her off to bed. He wasn't used to being argued with, and even less used to compromise. But Tali was old crew. She had earned a little leeway, same as Garrus.

Besides, it wasn't like he was sleeping tonight. 'Do as I say, not as I do' only worked on children and the military, and Tali was neither.

"Finish what you're doing," he said, backing off. "I'll wait."

She blinked again, silvery eyes flashing behind purple glass. "Shepard, you don't have to-"

"I intend to make certain you get to bed." He said sternly, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. "I leave you here alone you'll be up until day shift, and don't try and deny it."

She didn't. Instead she simply sighed and resumed her work, keying the console and dragging holoimages around, occasionally keying her omni-tool and mumbling strings of equations and quarian curses.

This went on for a while. Shepard wasn't bothered. Patience was one thing he had in abundance when it was required. Snipers didn't live long by jumping the gun. You learned little mental exercises to keep yourself occupied, but still aware of the world around you. His was disassembling and reassembling his rifle, naming each individual piece as it fell apart and pulled together in his head.

He had reached the convex outer lens of the scope when she spoke.

"What's it like not being in a suit?" Tali asked idly, moving to the terminal next to her to pull up another set of readings.

Shepard didn't want to distract her. The faster she worked, the longer she got to sleep off whatever infection had wound its way into her tenuous alien immune system. But since she had started the conversation, he figured the words must help her think, so he reciprocated.

"Not that different from military life, I expect," he said with a shrug. "Recycled air. Stale MREs."

"What about planetside? Or were you one of those 'army brats' Joker was talking about?"

Shepard ground his teeth a little. He was glad she was looking away.

"No. I was born on a colony."

"Called?" She was staring the floating image of the Normandy, helpful curving lines emanating from the three shield generators spaced evenly along the length of the ship.

"Mindoir."

"What was it like?"

"Dull."

Tali glanced over. Shepard was staring at the wall across the room as though it had personally wronged him.

She turned back to her work. "What about Earth?"

The breath caught in his lungs was released. He knew she was smart.

"Concrete hellhole. Ugly and wasteful. Only been there a handful of times." He glanced at her. "What about you? I know you've been places."

Tali sighed, spinning the image with her omni-tool. "I traveled a lot on my pilgrimage, but apart from the view, it was always the same. The galaxy is just so small inside a suit."

"What about aboard the Flotilla? You wear your suits there too?"

She shook her head, the cloth hood draped over her helmet wafting slightly. "Not the way it works, unfortunately. We've spent so long without a homeworld, even other quarians have an effect on us. The only people we're ever out of our suits around is family, and only sparingly. Linking suit environments with someone is a tremendous compliment."

"But you get sick?"

"And then we adapt. It's a profound gesture of trust. Acceptance."

She keyed something, and the shield arcs began to glow in different colors, each pulsing a different rhythm. "I haven't trusted anyone enough for that, though. Except-"

Her hands hesitated over the control panel. "Well, no quarians. Uh. You know what I mean."

Shepard looked down at the image of his ship, surrounded by shields noticeably stronger than they had been only minutes ago, and smiled. "Feeling's mutual, Tali."

"I know. Well, not that I _know_, but I know," she babbled as her hands fumbled with the keys. "I mean, I didn't mean it like that. It's, um... wow, it's really hot in here."

"You okay?" His brow furrowed. "Fever alright?"

"No. Yes. I mean... it's not that." She shook her head and shrugged. "It's just that the tradition - linking the suits - also signifies a willingness for, uh. Intimacy."

He blinked. "Oh."

Tali looked up and met his eyes for the first time since she had restarted work. She was making nervous, reassuring gestures with her hands. "I wasn't trying to - it's not _always_ like that, it's more... oh keelah, how did we even end up talking about this?"

This particular development caught him off guard. Shepard wasn't a fool. He had been around the block enough to know when someone was interested, but he hadn't even noticed until she'd (in a strange, ritualistic, quarian way) propositioned him. Maybe it was because with the skintight suit and her face constantly obscured, he hadn't picked up on any of the tells or body language he would have normally caught. Maybe it was because he didn't have much experience with quarians to begin with, and he wouldn't have noticed anyway. Or maybe he just hadn't bothered to really _look_ at her before as anything but an asset to the mission. He had always had a tendency to dehumanize, to not see beyond the work.

Regardless, he found himself more than a bit shocked that he wasn't immediately dismissing the prospect.

"Are you suggesting something?" He asked, eyes on her and voice free of any inflection.

Tali looked away, back down at the shield arcs, and then back up. She had apparently steeled herself, as her next words took on a kind of wry confidence.

"What could I possibly be suggesting?" She said, turning and leaning one hip against the edge of the console. "I mean, a young woman gets rescued by a dashing commander who lets her join his crew and goes off to save the galaxy?"

She crossed her arms and her voice lowered. "How could she possibly develop any kind of interest in him?"

Christ. Maybe he _was_ a fool to have not seen this until now.

"Trying to wrap my head around the logistics." He kept his tone low and warm, but his face impassive. "We were just talking about your suit."

She looked away. Her courage had apparently failed her and everything in her body language said she was blushing. "There's... nerve stimulation programs and such. For the suit. But..." She wrung her hands gently. "If you were really interested, there's ways to temporarily boost the immune system. I'd want it to be real."

"Trust and acceptance."

Tali met his eyes again. "Exactly."

Two things he never expected from anyone. Two things he certainly didn't deserve. But she was offering them. It was all down to whether or not he could reciprocate.

He doubted it. Very sincerely doubted it. He'd had a few casual fucks, filled a few empty bunks when someone had asked, but that clearly wasn't what was happening here. He hadn't had any kind of significant connection with anyone in as long as he could remember.

But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like if there was anyone left in his strange, fucked up half-life that he could trust, it was her. And as for acceptance? He was in no place to judge anyone.

In the end it came down to the mission, as it always did. Her health was at risk, but if she was confident enough to offer, it couldn't be too great a danger. And if it gave her strength, drove her to fight that much harder when the time came... perhaps it was worth hiding his own doubts.

_Lie back and think of victory,_ he thought. He had to stifle a wry smile and ended up turning it into a frown. Tali took this the wrong way.

"Sorry," she blurted, turning back to her work. "I'm being unprofessional, selfish, it must be the fever, it's... uh. Forget I said anything."

Shepard remained leaning against the wall, arms crossed and very quiet. He was out of time. His mind raced through all his arguments and justifications. It was now or never. Do or die. _Make a choice and own it, coward._

He crept up behind her again. He barely even had to try this time. It's easy to sneak up behind someone who's actively trying not to look at you. Gently but firmly, he placed his hand against the side of her hip where it met her waist, flaring out at a thoroughly respectable angle, hugged tight by her second skin.

Tali didn't jump this time. She froze.

"I didn't say no," Shepard said quietly.

She turned very slowly, catching his hand in hers, three gloved fingers against his five naked ones. Her eyes shone behind her helmet and despite all his resolve he couldn't help but think this was a very bad idea. He didn't want to hurt her, physically or emotionally, and he knew he was fully capable of both.

"I can't make any promises," he said, startling himself with genuine honesty. "If this doesn't work-"

"We'll make it work."

Tali raised his hand to her chin and placed it against the hollow of her throat. He felt the ringed metal adornment attached to the outside of the suit (quarian decoration, he thought, like the hood, possibly equating to family jewelry or ranking pips) and let his hand fall to just over her heart, between the two decorative clasps holding the front of her hood.

He was surprised to find he could feel her heart beat. Different, but rhythmic. And elevated.

Tali placed her hand over his. "If you want this..."

Shepard clenched his jaw. He didn't want to admit it, not even to himself. He was who he was not because he didn't have weaknesses, but because he kept them buried. And that's what this was. A weakness. A blind spot. His Achilles heel.

_Trust and acceptance_, he thought.

"I do."


End file.
